Stumbling and Trudging
by Aurea Mediocritas
Summary: "Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove" Takes elements from both Norse mythology and the film. Will become M in later chapters. Loki/Sigyn
1. Chapter 1

**Well, this is not my first story, but it is my first to be published here. I hope that you enjoy :)**

Loki had always found himself capable of manipulating people whom me disliked, and that was a great many. Almost the same number disliked him in return. He felt more justified in his feelings due to the fact that they were usually just reciprocated. It was no fault of his own, according to his mindset.

Unlike his brother, Loki didn't have many friends. He found the emotional investment in such relationships almost masochistic, as the closest friends he had seemed as if they were only cordial to him because of whom he had as a brother. He just didn't have the charisma to keep them as Thor did. Perhaps it was better. Or maybe Loki just liked to tell himself that for a sense of naïve reassurance.

The youngest son of Odin enjoyed the Vanir much more than the Aesir of his home. Among other things, he found them less prone to gossip and opulence, things that would quickly overwhelm one's senses in Asgard. The homes were wonderfully humble, and Loki wondered if he could find retreat here for at least a while without any word coming from Thor or Odin. He knew his brother loved him dearly when he happened to remember him, so a retreat would probably not be possible for long. Analyzing how his father would respond, Loki could think of nothing but a demand that he come back to Asgard only for him to not be too terribly needed.

With a sigh of frustration, the god ran his fingers through his already swept back hair before finding a seat on the barrier of a well-tended garden. It was hardly comfortable, and he laid back into a recline that almost looked defeated. Trying to disregard the feeling of hard planks that didn't conform to his spine, Loki eyed the flowers around him with interest. As much as he looked for a blemished blossom, there wasn't one to be found. Pulling a rose to his face, he caught the smell of perfume; it brought to mind the veil of scented particles that followed after the women at the Asgard banquets. Loki would smile politely, and they would grin back within amusement...

_Fssssshhhh! _Loki jumped at the sound of the bushes rustling most unnaturally, catching a glimpse of hand-spun gold that stuck to an outreaching stem. He knew instantly what was happening, and moved into a welcoming position with his features as calm as possible. "Come out now, little one. I won't hurt you..."

There was a quick little "No!", and then the plants became still again. Loki was reminded instantly of times when he and Thor would play hide and seek as children, when his brother would panic and retreat behind a pillar thinner than him, or just fall on the floor as if he wouldn't be seen. He smiled. "But you see, little one, I'm rather lonely here. I was hoping that perhaps you would come talk to me."

After a sequence of worried squeaks, a girl's head poked around the hydrangeas with caution. Her most distinguishing features were her sunlit hair and glassy blue eyes, the former a tangled mess and the later surrounded by a thicket of straight brown eyelashes. Her skin was comparable to a peach, and she had an almost tom-boyish quality to her. In her entirety she was not beautiful by any means, but instead adorable in her mannerisms. When Loki again asked her to come over, she tugged at her spirals nervously and bit her lip before approaching him with reluctance.

Up close, Loki realized that she was not Vanir; she had a rather human quality to her that was as obvious as the differences between short and long hair. Had she been Vanir, perhaps she would have been more attractive. She looked at him suspiciously, and all Loki could really do was smile gently back to assuage any fear she had for him. He had to try for quite a while, as she was very stubborn.

He spoke first to take the pressure off of her. " My name is Loki, should you want to know. And what's yours?"

She looked at him with furrowed little brows that sought to intimidate, but rather did the opposite. _What an angry little thing_, he thought with amusement. He was quite tempted to tousle her vines of hair, but he worried that she might take a bite from his arm.

There was a clearing of a throat that shocked Loki, and the child's face instantly brightened. He turned around and saw Njord, the man he had come all the way from Asgard to speak with. He was an older man with shoulder length gray hair and a beard, not unlike most Vanir men that age. Despite his common look, he had a staggering sense of strength that radiated off of him in a sort of aura. His eyes were steel, quite the same as the stormy waters that he ruled over, and he had very humble clothing that suggested he had been working for hours. If he had walked into Asgard like that, most of the residents would have thought him nothing.

The girl ran to Njord's leg (as that was all she could reach), and she wrapped her arms around his thigh. The corners of the man's lips turned in somewhat of a smile, "So Prince Loki, you've met my daughter, Sigyn. I hope she hasn't troubled you."

"No, of course not." the Aesir replied.

Njord had almost cut him off, seeming to expect Loki to say more. He was known for his way of talking to others even here, and Njord didn't want to listen to filler. The work at sea was rather tiring, and he had no time for such nonsense. He was not expecting Loki to act much differently.

"My love, I'm afraid the Prince has to come with me now. You can see him later."

Loki was surprised at this, as it seemed apparent that Sigyn didn't want to see him now, much less later on. She hugged Njord's leg tightly and scampered off into the farther reaches of the garden, looking back sadly at Loki. The prince noticed this, and his heart's beat fluctuated as though it had a separate mind. He frowned in confusion.

"Do not look so sad, Odinson." grunted Njord. "I will allow you to see her after our affairs are through if that is what you wish."

Loki felt as if he were caught in a lie (which almost never happened). "If you permit it. She doesn't seem too taken with me."

Njord just laughed, and Loki already found this behavior uncharacteristic of him. "Oh, Sigyn adores you. She acts cruelly for attention."

Loki found that typical of boys, never girls. However, he attributed it to living in Asgard, and Njord's presence in Sigyn's life would explain such. The god of the wind and sea was nothing but basically polite when it came to outsiders, particularly those from Asgard. Their conflicts in the past were not completely forgotten, mostly due to pride that was instilled to the marrow.

"So, Prince Loki... what business does the Allfather have today?"

The meeting sailed by pleasantly, with both dining on wine and Njord's harsh exterior cracking to expose something a bit kinder, but not so much that Loki could sit with ease. Nothing in their conversation was too new, and all of it was dreadfully political. Of course, Loki had the tongue and the patience for it, but Njord only had the second. He wasted no words, and moved on as quickly as possible.

"It has been a pleasure," said Loki, slightly bowing as needed when speaking to a king, but not yet bent completely at the waist, as he was a prince of a higher realm. "I will return when Allfather sees it fit."

Njord eyed him as if he detected something on Loki's mind that not even he knew of. He let it be, and returned the semi-bow. Without many other words, Loki exited Njord's mahogany-constructed conference room, only to be met by guards offering to escort him out. The prince declined such, and saw himself out of the palace. The wooden floors beneath his feet we more resounding than the golden ones of Asgard, and at this time of night it made him feel quite alone in a building that was only the size of a dining hall at home. However, he looked as he usually did: relatively content. His loneliness didn't show, as nothing ever did.

The double doors of Njord's keep were opened by four guards, and then closed right as Loki was outside and not in danger of having the doors graze him. He didn't look back until he heard a squeak from the side of the steps.

It was Sigyn, looking less angry than she did earlier. Loki felt his eyebrows raise, and then was surprised at the fact that he was surprised. "Did you wish to see me, little one?"

She looked down at her feet, then at Loki, and then down at her feet again before running to him. He thought she was about to kick him or something of the sort, but she stopped within two feet of him and gazed up at him with a sort of curiosity. Now that she didn't look as if she were wishing for him to die via her gaze, Sigyn was lovely. Lovely for a small child, lovely for one who was not a Vanir, and lovely for one who was cruel for attention.

Loki was a bit puzzled by the way she just looked at him, and then she opened her tiny blistered hands. In her palm was a silver ring, one obviously fit for only her fingers, and she thrust it at Loki. Seeing how demanding she was, Loki hesitantly took it. "A souvenir for my travels here?"

"No!" she snapped.

"Then what is it for, little one?"

She blushed furiously, and tugged at her curls rather forcefully. She wet her lips and squinted her eyes before shouting, "I want you to keep it... I want you to marry me one day!"

Loki's stomach dropped. _Oh... this is rather awkward... _He ran his fingers through his hair, not knowing what to say to the child lest she run off wailing to Njord. He knew exactly what to say to one who was older, but he predicted glass breaking beneath his feet should he say something offensive.

He wanted to say that he wasn't too interested.

He wanted to say that he was not willing to accept the ring.

He wanted to say that maybe when she was older he would give her an answer.

Instead, he shouted, "Heimdall!"

A beam of the Bifrost came crashing down onto him, lifting him back to Asgard within a matter of seconds. It felt as if Heimdall himself had reached down, grabbed him by the back of his collar, and yanked him miles up into the abyss with force strong enough to break through the rainbow bridge itself. He barely even saw Sigyn's reaction, but he felt that ignoring the question was better than any answer he could have possibly given her.

Loki caught his footing on the floor of the observatory, once again in the realm of Asgard. Heimdall stood steadfast as usual, probably knowing what he saw but not speaking. Loki shot him a defensive glare, as if communicating "Y_ou would do the same." _Odin's son was eager to retire.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry I deleted the second chapter. I realized that I sort of hated parts of it, so I decided to rewrite it. Enjoy!**

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><p>Loki looked at himself in the mirror of his lavatory that night. The oval glass was the only fixture on the wall that could manage to break up the layers of gold made into patterns reminiscent of paisley, and his reflection beamed back at him with waves of questions in its eyes. The sink was a simple disk suspended on a tall perch, and in it Loki ducked his face, rubbing the water into every crevice. It's iciness electrified his nerves, and simultaneously relaxed him wonderfully.<p>

He threw himself back up, his ebony hair returning to its sleek style while he immersed himself in thought. He rolled his eyes at the thought of Sigyn's proposal, but it was almost as if the situation had opened his a part of his mind that he rarely looked upon. Loki was not necessarily lonely when it came to women, but lonely when it came to something fulfilling. He had never considered a serious relationship with a woman, except one.

He thought of Freyja, the beautiful Vanir who paid him nighttime visits when he wished, but wouldn't stay with him. Instead, she wed Óðr, who was never present anyway. Loki thought about how easily she could have married him instead, yet chose the one who was forever abroad. Then when Óðr was gone, Freyja would come to Loki's bed and he would become too overcome with lust to mind. How like Loki it would be to announce in a banquet for Óðr that he had been sleeping with the man's wife all this time...

He ran his fingertip along his ear and across his jawline, then moved along the curves of his lips and ended on his dark eyebrows. He never really quite thought about it, but he supposed he was handsome enough. Loki felt himself suitable enough to be the affectionate object of many. He thought about the first time he met Freyja...

Only when Loki left his washroom and see his sleeping quarters did he realize how exhausted he was. His four-poster bed was more inviting tonight than almost any other, and he quickly worked his clothes off before crawling beneath the fur-lined blankets. His head nestled into his pillow so deeply that it seemed it might disappear; perhaps if he blocked out all sound, all irritating thoughts would follow. He would have no more of this nonsense tonight.

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><p>Loki had managed to get a few hours of sleep, and his paranoia was forgotten. His eyes opened very slowly, as they were still rather heavy from the exhaustion. Sunlight was shyly peeking into his room from the bottom inch of his window, and he mindlessly waved his hand at the shade. The gesture made the shade unroll itself, and the room again looked as if it were still in the earlier hours.<p>

He breathed easily, enjoying that the overwhelming thoughts of last night were now gone with his few hours of rest. He was sure that Sigyn would not complain to Njord, who would in turn complain to Odin... hopefully. The emotions of the Vanir ran very deeply, and one of the things that Loki disliked most was the presence of an awkward conversation, particularly with bothered fathers. Loki only traveled to Vanaheim once every decade or so, so perhaps Sigyn would forget. Or maybe her rage would only fester.

Loki breathed in a mixture of slight guilt at rejecting a small child and tremendous regret at becoming so flustered over it. He scolded himself, thinking the whole scenario ludicrous. It was not like him at all, and he elected to forget it completely. He was not about to have his day ruined by the thought of a little girl that he would not see again for a long while, if ever again.

Doing exactly what he set in his mind, Loki washed himself thoroughly, then set to combing his hair back and dressing. Being a bit charmed with the idea of Vanir dress, Loki wore a simple belted tunic and pants. Before leaving his room, he looked himself over, not accustomed to donning such plain things. It was very liberating in a way.

Loki walked the hallways with his flawless posture as usual, with the top of his head far above most of those he walked past. However, today these height-inferior people were staring at him with disgusted faces.

"What is he wearing?" they whispered to each other.

"Obviously Vanaheim rubbed off on him. Completely tasteless, I must say..."

"Or perhaps Freyja paid him a visit last night and left her clothes again..."

At this, Loki was tempted to swing around and confront this gossiper. He resisted it, and thought about how he had really spent too many years around his brother. Thinking on it, he quickly disregarded the rudeness and owed it to living in a realm that allowed such overindulged gentry to thrive. He couldn't help but think of Thor... but perhaps that's what one gets for being the firstborn of the Allfather. Loki was just the undersized second.

He desired the gardens today, but would not admit to himself that it was for exactly what one would think. Not wishing to hear anymore from passersby, Loki imagined himself a raven and it came to be. With this sudden transformation, pedestrians jumped and squealed, but when realizing it was Loki they believed themselves stupid for being taken aback and continued their strolls.

Loki kept up his flight, chuckling a bit inside. He had to confess that he adored the attention transfiguring gave him, and he felt it put him miles past most of the realm with this one talent. He would not brag though. Such was very beneath him.

Sailing over the palace's organ pipe-like spires, he caught sight of the garden and prepared to dive. The wind ruffling his feathers felt like velvet gliding past him, and he gained footing on a patch of lamb's ears (possibly killing the poor little plant in the process).

To his surprise, his father was there. Loki never really saw Odin as the type to dwell in gardens, but maybe he had decided to do so in his older age. He no longer found solace in battle, so he stuck with something a little more tranquil, Loki guessed.

Odin peered over at him for a moment, and the corners of his lips curled into a smirk. He went back to observing a comely hyacinth. "Are you trying to be ironic, my son?"

Loki felt himself swell with pride, but said pride was interrupted by his raven instincts finding a considerable amount of interest in a bug crawling on a plant adjacent to him. He forgot all ideas of a bird, and was one no more as a result.

Brushing himself off, Loki found a seat by his father. The old man seemed to pay no mind until he put a hand on Loki's shoulder and patted him kindly. The prince thought his chest was about to combust with so much pride that could not let itself be contained, and he smiled genuinely. "I arrived back home very late last night, so that is my reason for not coming to you with news from Vanaheim."

"You needn't bother. I spoke with Njord just this morning." Odin replied swiftly.

Loki felt a bit nervous, but remained the paragon of reservation on the outside. "I trust it went well then."

"Oh, yes. Njord is always a pleasure to speak to."

The prince felt a twinge of relief, and then Odin continued, "I'm afraid, however, that you upset his young one."

_Oh, sublime..._

"I apologize father... she just caught me a bit off guard, that's all... I wasn't expecting-I didn't want to hurt her feelings-"

"Caught you off guard?" reiterated Odin. "My son, at least my youngest, is _never _caught off guard. Dear boy, I've raised you since birth. The idea that you were startled by something so innocent and ridiculous is as realistic as Lady Sif resigning to become a homemaker."

But he really had been caught off his guard. Something in the depths of his stomach had made him feel as if nothing in the world could have prepared him for such. And now...

And now Loki had his mind on other things. He moved his attention to the hyacinth that Odin had been observing, and almost laughed. There were points of wilt on the petals, and small tears from various agents. "These are nothing compared to the flowers of Vanaheim... look how they've bruised. They're pathetic, father. You really must bring a Vanir groundskeeper."

"And who would you suggest? You speak as if someone from Vanaheim would have Asgard excel ahead of them in yet another area. I say let them be superior with this."

True, they were humble, but Loki had never considered them inferior to Asgard. In fact, he recalled very clearly that he thought Asgard superfluous when aligned with Vanaheim. Their quaintness was preferable to the insane splendor of Asgard, in Loki's eyes. But when he actually thought about it, maybe he only felt this way because he only saw Vanaheim from the perspective of an infrequent guest. All of a sudden, Asgard's appeal rose a bit.

"So, my son, out of curiosity, would you consider marrying Sigyn when she came of age?"

Loki's eyebrows raised, and he felt his father was making fun of him. "No."

"No? No indeed, no?"

"No." repeated Loki.

Odin seemed about as entertained as he ever allowed to show on his face, and patted his son on the back so roughly Loki thought he might fly into a wall and break it with his hard head. "You realize I jest, Loki. You are much too somber in my presence. Why is it that you fail to live up to your reputation when I am your audience?"

Loki didn't reply for a few moments, analyzing what to say.

"I am sorry, father."

Odin was in the middle of standing when Loki apologized, and he looked at his son with a weary face. He appeared so much more aged in that glance, and so very disappointed. He straightened himself up and began to go towards the boundary of the garden. "I find it quite disheartening that half your speech is composed of apologies for me, Loki."

Wanting to deny what was happening, Loki's heart sunk to the point of disconnection as he watched the old man retreat into the distance. He half expected Odin to turn around and come back, but he did no such thing. His father's form was soon out of sight from the gardens.

Loki wrung his hands in frustration, failing to keep his father in his attention for more than ten minutes, and finishing with driving him away. The veins in his temples pounded and a part of his mind feared they would burst.

_If I were Thor, father would not find himself so prone to walking away like a fool!_

In an attempt to take out his aggravation, Loki seized the hyacinth that his father had given so much awareness and stomped its beautiful being into the ground, turning his heel down into his remnants so until he felt satisfied that nothing would be left of it.

Looking down, he saw the ruins of the hyacinth completely desecrated, its form covered in grime to the point that it was questionable as to if it had been the same gorgeous blue bloom. He sighed, instantly regretting his loss of composure. Anything else from anyone else would have have been nothing, and he would have responded with nothing. But Odin made the god of mischief unable to do even such a simple task that he felt was just as natural as breathing.

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><p><strong>Thanks for reading! I'm sorry if these are short (at least I think they are), but I don't have much time allotted in my schedule to allow for much writing. If it's any consolation, I plan on making this a lengthy story.<strong>


	3. Chapter 3

**Here's chapter three, and I hope that you enjoy it. A couple of people messaged me asking where I got the idea for Sigyn and Loki's first meeting, and your answer is: I found it on Google. There isn't much on their first meeting, but I found a couple of places attesting to an introduction in a garden when Sigyn was a child. **

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><p>Feeling most crestfallen, Loki left the gardens for his room so slowly he felt as if he were wading through something extremely viscous. His anger had somewhat subsided, but he still felt terribly ashamed of himself. Loki had been much closer to his father when he was a child, but Odin seemed to have gradually distanced himself when the boy began to look into sorcery. Loki felt he was destined to venture into arts much darker than the Asgardians were used to, just as most of the residents here were bound to be betrothed early.<p>

The more Loki thought about, the more it seemed as if Odin were bound to have become disconnected with him eventually. There was nothing he could do to have changed that, even if he denied himself what he found to be in his nature and took on a more socially acceptable role. It seemed as if there was just something _within _Loki that Odin tried very hard to love but was always repelled by.

At this time, Loki wished deeply that he did not have his jet black hair. He longed for yellow hair... if only briefly.

Loki had been contemplating all of this so much that he did not even notice when he was back in his room until he felt his hand closing the door. The doorknob was so cold that the touch of it surged all the way to the top of his head, and he was forced out of his hypnosis. If his consciousness hadn't been jolted back into a functioning state, he would have hardly even noticed Freyja asleep in his bed.

He almost sighed in relief at this. Taking off his belt and tunic, Loki neared the kingly fixture and carefully sat down upon it, not wishing to awaken Freyja roughly. The fur-lined blankets sunk beneath him, having been filled to capacity with the softest of down, and he placed his hand on the sleeping woman's shoulder. He gently shook her, and her eyes opened with some reluctance.

"Good evening, Freyja."

Trying to shake sleepiness from herself, she rubbed her golden eyes and undid the unsightly tangles that had formed in her hair while she dozed. "I've been waiting for you for some time now... I thought that perhaps you would not be back even by nightfall."

"I thought I would have," he said with a twinge of sorrow, "but something happened today that caused me to want to retire early."

She didn't seem to be listening. "My husband left yesterday."

Loki's insides had an instantaneous kick of jealousy. Every time she had ever mentioned Óðr, Loki's entirety filled with remembrance of her rejection of his noble advances, and he felt the hatred and spite for her boil in his veins. He wanted to hurt her with everything that he had in him, and such viciousness in him allowed for more energy to be spent. In a way, she both caused and cured him of his fury, knowing nothing of either.

"I'm so sorry, Freyja." he lied, putting on a mask of sympathy. "This will be opportune for both of us then."

With that, Loki crawled beside her and slipped his pants off, tossing them carelessly onto the floor before moving on to undress her next.

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><p>Sixteen years passed on Midgard, without much thought given to such in Asgard. They noticed nothing of this, and continued their activities unfazed.<p>

Loki looked exactly the same, with his jet-black hair still slicked back and his posture still flawless. Over the past two decades, he had done everything he had usually done: he practiced his sorcery, he had read enough books for twenty literate Midgardians, and he had both lusted after and hated a certain goddess many a night. However, he had not traveled back to Vanaheim, and he was expecting to have to be sent back soon.

He did not expect "soon" to mean "today".

"Njord is looking forward to seeing you again, Loki." said Odin very plainly. "I need not tell you what your business will be, as I'm sure you know it as well as I, if not better."

Loki nodded without much enthusiasm. He felt as if the wind was knocked out of him every time Odin referred to him by name instead of 'my son', and even then he would have preferred to be getting a bone-breaking kick to the chest over the reality.

"I understand, father."

Such formality between a father and son was painful to Loki, and he could not help but wonder if was hurtful to Odin as well. While he questioned it inwardly, he dared not utter such outwardly. He placed his fist over his heart like any other Asgardian speaking to the Allfather, and bent his waist down in a deep bow. "I will return soon."

Odin merely nodded.

The prince turned on his heel, and set out of the conference room without looking back. While leaving, he tugged at the bottom of his sleeves to make sure they were as pressed as possible; as he was technically an ambassador, he was wearing his finest clothing to make only the most striking impression.

'_Hmmmm... ambassador for Asgard. Sounds marvelously official,' _he thought to himself.

Once within a reasonable distance from the palace, Loki entered the royal stables and bridled a massive horse to ride to the observatory. It was a rather aggressive one, turning sharply and taking off like a projectile without a spurn to the side. Fortunately, it got him where he needed to be faster than any other horse he had ever ridden.

Leaving the beast at the end of the rainbow bridge, Loki walked through the circular entrance of the observatory and saw the gatekeeper Heimdall standing at the midpoint of the dome. He had a broadsword in his hand, used to activate the magnificent Bifrost, and his amber eyes were as steely as his blade.

"To Vanaheim, Odinson?"

"That is correct."

Heimdall sank the uru weapon into the center pedestal as if it were a key, causing a chilling metallic sound followed by the roaring din of the observatory's machinery whirling. The dome's "telescope" performed an almost impossible amount of revolutions before tilting itself west and dropping to a fifteen degree angle, pointing straight for Vanaheim.

Loki made no hesitations and took a step forward. The Bifrost took hold of him and thrust his being forward into a short oblivion, allowing for him to briefly try to observe the multicolored streaks whizzing past him.

There was the sound of thunder quaking across the sky as the Bifrost struck the ground of Vanaheim. Loki caught his footing steadily, and the surge of energy withdrew back into the depths of space, back to Asgard.

The dark-haired man shook himself off as if remnants of what he had just traveled through was still upon him like snowflakes. The buffer village was not too far from where he stood, and just beyond that the palace.

He started walking.

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><p>Sigyn sat before her vanity in her bedroom, much older now than six. She gathered her long golden hair and tied it back, something that she thought made her appear practical. Just putting the finishing touches on preparing for the day, she had already pulled on a pair of fitted antique white trousers mostly concealed by dark brown boots that climbed to her knees. On top of that was a long-sleeved linen shirt and a nicely-cut coat that both matched her pants. An plain vest broke up the white of her top half.<p>

Very practical, but much more modern looking that just about anything in Vanaheim. She supposed that's what she should expect from clothing from Asgard. Her garments looked quite like they had belonged to a man at some point, only to be tailored down to fit a smaller female form.

Exiting her bedroom, she strode down the hallways, and gained no small amount of stares from passersby that didn't seem to approve of her masculine attire. The farther she went down the wooden hall, the more naked she felt. By the time she reached the door of her father's conference room, she already felt like retreating back into her room to throw on the most feminine dress she had.

Knocking hard enough to almost deem it a banging at the door, Sigyn heard her father give her permission to come in. Using just about all her strength to push open the mahogany door, the thing widened enough for her to shimmy in with the space she was allowed, before shoving it until it shut tight.

"I'm sorry to bother you father, but I was wondering if-"

Sigyn stopped short, seeing someone she could almost consider a ghost of her past. Loki sat at the table across from Njord, and he didn't look the least bit shocked at seeing her. He gave her a quick glance, and then went back to speaking with Njord.

While he didn't look it, Loki was feeling the strains of being about awkward company. He felt so utterly exposed with how she looked at him upon her entrance into the room. Within the second that he took note of her arrival, he had gathered some observations: she still had the same blue eyes and straight eyelashes, her hair was still like the first rays of sun on the horizon, and she was much more attractive in her maturity. However, the masculine clothing didn't do too much for him; he immediately recognized the threading and the leather as things produced by Asgardians, and Asgardians did not make such articles for many women.

Loki felt something he did not think he would: he felt very solemn. She was in her twenties now, and he had barely noticed how that time had passed, even in all his boredom. If the time spent with her when she was a child was no indication that she was human, this most certainly was. He could not imagine how he would feel if he had lost years so quickly as she had, and he could almost feel her aging with every second.

The Aesir thought Sigyn was terrible as concealing her emotions, or maybe it she was just inept at keeping surprise from showing on her ivory face. Her cheeks were a bit rosy, and did not seem to want to look at Loki while she quietly sat next to her father.

Loki could not help but think about what happened so many years ago while he spoke to Njord. He enjoyed his ability to speak to someone and think about something terribly complex with complete attention to both, but he wished more for the ability to read Sigyn's mind at this time.

Njord didn't take long to speak to Loki; his lack of desire for fillers had not changed, but only amplified since the last time the Aesir had visited. By the time the last sentence was spoken, Njord was already to his feet and leaving to help his men prepare for an expedition to the west in search of ore, which was not too plentiful here in the royal city of Vanaheim.

Loki kept in his seat. As Sigyn was about to follow after her father in hopes of offering aid, Loki stopped her. "Sigyn, please come back. I wish to talk to you."

She seemed to have been trying to build up a large momentum, because when he implored that she return to the table she looked like she might trip over herself. Turning back to face him, she seemed a bit irritated. He remained straight-faced, and she sat down in her father's chair without question or protest.

Loki licked his lips, one of the only signs he would give to indicate that he was a bit apprehensive. "Sigyn, I suppose... I suppose I want to apologize to you for just leaving when you... yes, I am sorry."

"Sorry?" she repeated, obviously aware of what he was referring to but wishing to leave and thus feigning interest. "Why would you be sorry? It was stupid of me, but I was six. I wasn't mad... at all, really. It means nothing to me now."

With that, she stood up and left the room, disregarding Loki's protests as she pulled open and slammed the enormous door. Her aversion to him seemed terrible if she went as far enough as to totally ignore him when he repeatedly asked for her to stay. Now he was all alone, and feeling quite the fool.

While he sat there, he thought that today seemed to exactly parallel yesterday, but he wasn't as hurt by it.

That's not to say he wasn't hurt at all.

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><p><strong>I will update as soon as I'm able. Thanks for reading :D<strong>


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry for the delay; I had to clean my boyfriend's room all day because he was being lazy playing "Shogun 2". I never want to hang a shirt up again... Enjoy!**

**By the way, I don't own anything of "Thor", only my story and my writing.**

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><p>The more Loki thought about it, the more it seemed that the people he wished to talk to the most were the ones that were always retreating from him. He had left the conference room feeling more frustrated then he had in such a long time...<p>

Obviously Sigyn did not wish to see him, but a part of him wished that she wanted it more than anything else so that he could feel like he had actually been forgiven rather than dismissed like a child who had just done something so stupid that his parent could not look at him.

Trying to bury the feeling of being walked out on, Loki decided to go to the one place he had thought about every minute since the last time he was in Vanaheim: the beautiful gardens on the outskirts of the gulf just beyond the palace.

Not wanting to wait at all, Loki began to walk with strides of almost four feet. Then he abandoned that walk to jog, and did the same to that job to run. His running scuffed his boots terribly, but he cared not. Technically, he did not have to be back in Vanaheim for another decade or so.

_By the time I come back, she'll be reaching her halfway mark, and will most certainly have forgiven me..._

At the moment, Loki could have almost stopped running. He didn't know why he said that; the more he reran the sentence though his head, the more he wanted to trip himself sprinting at full speed. Loki never even thought such idiotic things, and now he was disgusted with himself. He was so aware of her mortality, and he couldn't possibly compare with how aware she must have been about it too. To think that she lived out her years so far growing and developing while all her friends and family stayed exactly the same. To think that the children that she played with when she was little would still be children when she was on her deathbed one day. Sooner than any Aesir or Vanir realized, except perhaps for Njord. He had to see his daughter withering under her short expectancy every day.

Except now Loki knew very clearly that Sigyn was none of Njord's. He wondered if she knew.

_I need to see her again..._

And he really did. Loki needed to see Sigyn again before he left Vanaheim. After his revelations, Loki felt the need to speak with her for more than a couple of minutes. He didn't know what inside him was making this such a necessity, but he did not bother to question it. At times like this, he was thankful for being lonely; it gave him the time to contemplate a million different scenarios in his head and actually notice things, unlike those he was raised with.

Going to the garden was an excellent idea, he thought.

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><p>Sigyn was incredibly sore and drained from a day of helping her father and his men load their ships. She looked at her arms, thinking how small her arms were, and how much stronger they needed to be in order to be any sort of help with... that sort of thing. Her appearance looked enough like she was capable, but she new better. She thought herself pretty useless to all the other men and her father. Even when they were sick and exhausted to the point of unconsciousness, they were possessed more than five times her capability. All day, she was left to carry bits of rope and empty boxes.<p>

But she was always so stubborn. If the box was too heavy, she'd just carry it until her legs gave out because she was too hard-headed to admit that it was too much for her, and she didn't want to look like the weakest link among the workers. But she knew deep down that she was only trying to prove a point that would never be made clear. Sigyn didn't want to be wearing herself down all day, but she thought it would be preferable to an occupation as mother. Heavy-lifting was not exactly desirable, but she would rather do that than carry about children all day. Children that she had with a man who would not want her after she had given birth to all the babies that were in her ability to conceive.

She could always leave Vanaheim for Asgard like her sister had... but she knew that her weak form wouldn't survive such a travel. When Loki had retreated back to the highest realm via the Bifrost, Sigyn thought that the vortex would have killed her if she dared touch it.

_Loki..._

Sigyn shook her head as if to empty her head of her thoughts of him. Seeing him today was both a surprise and a relief, but she would admit it to no one. It was much too embarrassing, thinking about him... She had thought she had rid her mind of him sixteen years ago, but seeing him had just uncovered something that she had worked so diligently to suppress for so long. She also thought that running away from him earlier today would have made it easier for her to again bandage up and stow away the feelings that had been uncovered, but it did nothing. In fact, she almost felt worse for it, and now she would not see him again until... until she was reaching into her mid-forties. She cringed at the thought.

For now, all Sigyn could do was go to her garden. She could never thank her father enough for granting her the permission and the land to use as she saw fit, and she never stopped tending to it. At least she knew she could do _that _better than anyone in Vanaheim and Asgard combined. However, he only wished that she could actually do something useful with the flowers she grew; blossoms were not a valuable commodity to the Vanir, as they were too plentiful.

Her refuge was not far from where she had been working all day; it sat in a wooded area a few hundred feet from the gulf where the ships had been docked, ready to stretch out their legs in the open ocean. Looking up, she saw the night was coming to life in small increments across the sky, stars revealing themselves in the areas between complete darkness and receding dusk. To make use of the light that was failing her, she broke into a run.

Loki was at the same spot that he had been when he was in the garden last, and unfortunately it had not become any more comfortable in sixteen years. Comfort or not, he filled with nostalgia as he saw the same rose that he had inspected his first time here sixteen years ago. Its petals were still as fresh and unharmed as they were last time, and the scent was still a wafting perfume that invaded his senses and swam across the inside of his forehead. He ran his fingers across the plant's layered bloom, but he feared that the roughness of his hands would tear it apart, so he let it go. The head of the plant bounced when it left his touch, and then went back to being eerily stationary.

His attention to it was broken when he heard the sound of footsteps approaching the area where he was sitting, but did not necessarily feel the need to move. Instead, he was just thankful that his idea to stay here past daylight times was not a waste. Not that staying in this garden was a waste to him, but he could not spend all night sitting on a plank.

Sigyn saw his swept-back hair first, and felt almost as if she had walked in on someone in the nude. She had to stifle a gasp as she saw Loki seated calmly and quietly on the barrier of the flower bed. In her chest, she could not deny to herself that she felt relieved that he had not left. When she got over the fluttery feeling of running into someone unexpectedly, she implored, "Why are you _always _the one who feels the need to come here without asking me?"

"Always? Quite the exaggeration." he replied. "This is only the second time I've been here."

"That's not the point." she threw back. "I thought that you needed to be getting back to Asgard..."

"No, I do not. I am wherever I deem the most fit." he said, speaking honestly to her, which was somewhat of a luxury to his acquaintances. "This is where I wish to be, and I would enjoy it very much if you would sit and talk with me."

"Why?" she asked, giving off body language that could either be interpreted as nervousness or as the realization that she had made a mistake coming here instead of going home. Loki did not want to call it.

"Because I want to talk to you, obviously."

Sigyn didn't argue, and instead sat down. From here, Loki was about half a head taller than her, and she had to tilt her head a bit to look at him while he spoke. Her toes curled in pain when she felt her neck cramp in protest at having to bend after what she had gone through that day, but she strove to ignore it as Loki spoke.

Almost immediately, Sigyn's caution began to diminish. She could not deny that Loki was a very smooth talker, and when she spoke she drew the impression that he was actually listening to what she said instead of waiting for his turn. Also, she noticed that he had a habit of not blinking when he spoke. Either he was a very good liar or just extremely honest.

"You seem nice enough, when I get past the fact that you ran away from me like a girl," said Sigyn.

The Aesir's straight face flinched for a fraction of a second, but she did not notice. Loki felt most embarrassed.

"How sexist of you," he replied. He tried to further explain himself. "If it means anything now, I did not want to give you an answer because I felt that there was no good one for your question."

"Oh, even if you said yes, I probably would have figured out that you weren't serious anyway," she muttered, with an almost undetectable tinge of sadness. Loki would not have lived up to his name if he had not caught it.

"Are you still spiteful towards me?" he asked.

Sigyn shook her head. "No."

"You certainly acted like you still were in the conference room and when you came here."

"It was just a bit awkward because the last time I saw you, you were running away," she explained. "I saw it on your face a bit too. You don't seem to show too much, but I do catch glimpses of things."

Loki took in all her words. He did not usually speak to someone who used such informal diction, and it was almost refreshing. His mind wondered from that idea when he saw holes on the knees of her trousers and the elbows of her shirt, and the fact that her coat was gone altogether. "I'm afraid your clothing is ruined," he pointed out.

"I know..." she said sadly. "They were a gift, but I don't like how they look on me. I got the worst glares today. Almost made it not worth it."

Loki almost smiled, not because he thought this humorous, but because the same had happened to him recently when he chose to be dressed in Vanir clothing. The stitching was fantastic, and the quality of the leather looked like it would have made only half the suit cost a fortune. "You received these from someone in Asgard?"

"Yes, my sister. Well, my half-sister. She left Vanaheim sometime ago," answered Sigyn.

Loki was pieced things together in his head within a second, but feigned ignorance to make sure he was not making any assumptions. "Your half-sister? Was she from a previous marriage of your father's?"

"No." said Sigyn, looking terribly bothered.

"I apologize if-"

"Please, just drop it," snapped Sigyn. "Either way, my father never told me about it. I had to figure it out my own, but it wasn't hard to do that."

Regaining herself, she stood up and brushed off the back of her pants as if there was any salvaging the wasted garments. For an instant, Loki saw a glimmer of the anger she showed as a child, and knew that her knowledge of the situation must have held something terrible beyond the fact that she was not her father's daughter. As curious as he was, he dared not ask.

He almost did not give her credit, thinking that she could have possibly not known that she was not Vanir. Looking back, if he had asked her about it, he was sure that she would have been incredibly insulted. He barely knew her, but from what he could gather she did not miss much. He respected that.

"Are you leaving for Asgard tonight or do you want a room?" she asked, looking at him with all seriousness.

"If it is acceptable, I would like a room." he answered, fairly excited at the chance to stay in Vanaheim for longer. He found that Odin could perhaps wait a little longer for him to return; it was not as if the safety of anyone depended on the meeting Loki had with Njord.

"Well then, I'll take you to a room at the palace," offered Sigyn. "I'm sure father won't mind, and royal quarters would be more appropriate than an inn, what with you being "ambassador to Asgard" and whatnot."

Standing up, Sigyn found that Loki was at least a head taller than her; she had not noticed it in his time here as she had only ever seen him seated ever since he arrived. It was a bit intimidating, and she blushed without thinking. Once she felt her cheeks burning, she looked away from him in embarrassment.

Loki had noticed her blushing, and smiled. Trying to be as polite as possible, the prince stuck out his elbow in her direction. She understood and took his arm within her own, giggling as she did so; she had never had a man offer to walk arm-in-arm with her before, and it was most flattering. Sigyn thought that her heart might leap out of her chest, and her mind began to wander to places it had been earlier.

"Loki, would you... would you want to start over?" she asked.

He looked over at her, looking confused. Inside, he was not in the slightest, but again feigned ignorance. "As in friends?"

Sigyn's heart sunk at the word, but she dared not think why it did. It felt as if her knees might give out at any moment from the agony that was in her now, but she strove to keep up with his fast pace and long strides.

_Perhaps I still... _

No she did not, she assured herself. "I suppose, yes," she agreed.

Loki did not look at her. "I see nothing wrong with that."

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><p><strong>I hope you enjoyed this chapter. If it seems like I'm not explaining everything that needs to be, trust me, it will be explained later. I like to leave my writing interpretive sometimes ;)<strong>


	5. Chapter 5

**Whew. Finally, chapter five. This chapter took forever to write, and I switched around a dozen parts of it to try to make it enjoyable. Reason why I don't find myself that good a writer: I put a huge amount of effort into a chapter that is much shorter than most XD**

**Anyway, I hope you find this eventful, if anything. Thanks for the support :)**

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><p>Sigyn escorted Loki to his room that night, one that was larger than even her own. Opening the door, a massive space showed itself, revealing an enormous bed crafted from cherry wood and adorned with a very airy cotton-constructed comforter. A large shaded window took up almost an entire wall by itself, and covering it was a wooden shade with blinds as wide as Loki's thighs. Everything was crafted from wood, and it was a welcome change from the ever-constant gold. He liked it.<p>

"Thank you," he said, bowing, but not keeping it to his upper region. He bowed completely.

Her eyes fluttered, and from his distance to her Loki could only guess it was from extreme fatigue. In a tired voice, she mumbled, "You're welcome... if you don't need anything else, I'll be going to bed."

"This is fine." he replied.

"Goodnight then."

Loki returned the favor, and she closed the door. He heard footsteps moving all the way down the hall in a western direction, and heard a door shut. With everything being made of wood, there was no sneaking up on the royal family in Vanaheim. Relaxed and feeling content in the fact that he had been able to have such a pleasant conversation with Sigyn, Loki removed his clothing and climbed into bed.

Sigyn wasn't nearly at such ease. When she reached her bedroom, she locked the door and felt her ribs bruising from the breathing she was trying to contain. Stripping off her ruined clothes carelessly, she could not stop her hands and lips from trembling. Unable to hold in her emotions anymore, she entered her annexed bathroom and fell to her knees. Tears erupted almost uncontrollably.

The first time Sigyn saw Loki when she was a child, she knew that she had become infatuated with him, like one look at him set about a chain of impulses that led to the activation of a primal instinct within her. At first she denied herself such, and could have slapped herself with the fact that she was only six years old and he was much too old for her. But it was almost as if some outside force had already preordained that she was to love him, and realize it the first time she was to lay eyes on him, whether that time be when she was six or sixty.

It was more than just an infatuation, because regardless of how many times she tried to cover up her ardor, it always revealed itself like a dog that would follow after you even after you repeatedly told it to lie down. She would have been joyful if it would have worked, but she knew it would not. While she may have been a princess of Vanaheim, she was not even an equivalent to a noblewoman of Asgard; seeing Loki's logic on things so far, he would probably find it inappropriate. In fact, he was probably already wed to someone else. He had to be, being the son of Odin and prince of the highest realm.

And to make matters worse, he was actually very friendly to her. He had actually extended his arm to her and walked with her like that all the way back to the palace! She thought about how she would feel about him if he had been callous, as if it would have made a difference.

Sigyn admitted to herself that she loved him, and she could have kicked herself in scorn. Under any circumstances, Loki would refuse her.

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><p>When Loki woke up the morning after, he was not amused to find that he had immense pain in his lower back due to the fact that beds in Vanaheim were not nearly as comfortable and supportive of his spine as the ones in Asgard. Being a god, the aches faded away within a matter of seconds, but he could not remember ever having to wake up to something like that before. He dressed in his clothing from yesterday as the pain melted away, and when he finished fixing the enormous bed, he left the room.<p>

Loki felt like such an... Asgardian... here in Vanaheim during the day, when he was actually wandering about the town. His clothing was so regal, with its silk linings, gold adornments, and exaggerated shoulders, and he was at least half a head taller than everyone he saw. All the stores seemed to be agriculture-oriented, selling fruits, vegetables and grains harvested by nearby farms. It made perfect sense, as Vanaheim was the most fertile of all the Nine Realms; they only occasionally made weapons for export and times of trouble, and all clothing was mainly made by the one who ended up wearing it. It was simple, and the people were very self-sufficient. Loki found it most foreign and charming.

Altogether, Loki felt himself relieved here. In Asgard, he was usually very unamused by everything and impatient with just about all of the residents. His temper here was not nearly as foul, and it almost shocked him. He felt like he did not even know himself when he was here; he was almost a totally different person altogether, as if the air were filled with some kind of soothing agent.

He moved slowly to try to take in all the sights, and could not find a single woman not wearing a dress or girl not accessorizing with a ribbon. He thought back to what Sigyn had said about the glares she received from dressing in a masculine fashion, and it made as much sense as agriculture in this realm. Loki wondered what Sigyn would look like with a gown, and then believed that, with such clothing, he would not be able to detect her in a crowd.

Loki was happy that he had kept this to himself, or he would had been most embarrassed because he turned out to be very wrong. Sigyn was walking down the main road, wearing a terribly-sewn beige dress. He could only imagine that she made it herself, as she did not seem the type to be able to sew clothing even adequately.

He did not pick up his pace at all, as his long legs were able to move longer distances than her's. Within a minute or two of going in her direction, Loki was able to catch up with her. "Good morning."

She did not reciprocate the greeting. Instead she muttered, "I need to talk to you. Let's go discuss this in the garden."

Feeling slight discomfort, he agreed, wondering what was on her mind. She immediately took a left at the road's intersection, walking between two fields of wheat in the direction of the gulf. The road was nothing but gravel and dirt, so the bottom of her dress soon became tarnished and Loki's boots became a lighter color.

Sigyn was walking so quickly that even Loki had to speed up slightly to keep up with her. Inside, she felt as if he insides were liquifying from all the heartbreak that was going through her. It poked and it prodded to be released, stinging her heart like a multitude of arrows. She knew exactly what she was doing: she had thought about it all night, and all morning. She even purposely wandered into town in order to be seen by him, as she knew that attending to her normal duties would get no attention from him because he would be no where near the study. Sigyn felt as if she were about to face a most powerful fiend, and overpowering him would allow for her to live out the rest of her life in peace and without pain from coveting.

She almost felt the urge to apologize in advance for what she was about to do, but she realized that saying sorry would negate any reason she had of doing this in the first place and it would mean nothing.

When they were about thirty meters from the edge of the water, Loki began to smell sea air, cool and heavy with salt. The garden was nearing, and when they soon entered its perimeter.

Loki sat down, ready to hear what she wanted to say. In the pits of his stomach, he was nervous. Her body language conveyed to him that something ill was about to transpire, and he braced himself with an emotionless face.

Sigyn tugged at her golden spirals, and bit her bottom lip so hard that she feared she might break the skin and draw blood. Perhaps it was best to disconnect herself into separate parts while she said this.

"Loki, I want you to leave Vanaheim."

He was a bit confused, but did not let it show in his voice. He merely asked politely, "Why?"

"Because I don't ever want to see you again. You've caused me more trouble than I'm willing to cope with."

Loki felt as if he had been slapped by the hand of befuddlement. He had no idea what she was speaking of, and... why was she all of a sudden behaving in such a way?

"You told me last night that you wanted to, and I quote, 'start over' as friends. Am I incorrect?"

"I don't care what I said last night," she said sharply. "I want you gone, and I never want you back in this realm. I've already talked to my father about arranging a different ambassador when Odin needs to bring news here again."

It was so difficult for her to say this, but she would not be able to survive seeing the Aesir again. His presence was too much, and she did not like the slave-like position she was being put in when she saw him or heard him or spoke to him. She loved him terribly, but she would not have him around torturing her if she could not be with him. Sigyn knew that it would sound cruel and out of nowhere, but Loki had a certain reputation. He would be over it soon, or he would do all within his power to make her sorry for treating him in such a way. With how she felt, it was almost preferable to have him against her in his entirety than just unable or unwilling to be with her. It hurt too much.

A small corner of her mind was telling her that she should ask him, but she quickly silenced it. She refused to be humiliated.

"You should be in your own realm, your majesty. Forgive my tone, but I am also royalty, and I am allowed to command you to leave."

Loki merely stood there, looking angrier and angrier with each passing second.

"Go home!" she yelled.

Her impertinence was dragging up a side of him that he only had within Asgard, and all his tranquility was quickly drying up. Loki's rage bubbled, and he was tempted to strike Sigyn across the face. Had she been anyone else, he would have. He would have even lost his legendary composure if it had been anyone else. But she wasn't someone else. Something in him held him back, and he could not find it in himself to turn his hand against her.

"Heimdall!" he shouted into the sky.

The call was heard, and the Bifrost came surging down onto him and the surrounding area. There was a crash of thunder, and the gargantuan lightning bolt-like torrent was gone, leaving a circle of calligraphic markings on the ground of the garden.

Doing this had been much harder than Sigyn ever imagined it would be, and she had imagined it as the most challenging trial she would ever have to endure. She almost wanted to call him back, to propose to him one last time just in case he actually felt the same way for her as she did for him.

She did not want to take that chance because she did not want to hear from him something she already knew.

Sigyn dropped to her knees and burst into tears.


	6. Chapter 6

**I apologize profoundly for how long it has taken me to update this, but I have been very sick with pneumonia. Don't think I've abandoned this just yet :P**

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><p>Many weeks passed by and, being back in Asgard, Loki felt more irritable than ever. He hardly left his room, and delved more deeply into his sorcery. Without any distractions, he was able to work to his fullest potential with everything he did, but it was an empty feeling. Talking to Thor gave him an empty feeling. Sleeping with Freyja gave him an empty feeling.<p>

To respond to this, he spoke more and more with his brother, and even asked if he would practice fighting with him. Thor was rather surprised at Loki's sudden interest in sparring, and Loki was as well. He was usually so annoyed by Thor. Regardless, he spent an excessive amount of time around the man, hoping to get any feeling (even if it were blinding rage), but still felt the abyss in his chest growing larger and larger. It even got to the point where Thor was demanding to know what was the matter, and Loki had to spend an hour running from him in order to evade the question.

Freyja gave all her attentions to him (and she was truly a wonder to behold), but while they laid naked together after a session of lovemaking, all Loki could think about was how he felt he was losing himself in nothingness. He would stroke her arm, feeling her skin as smooth as glass, and run his long fingers through her hair as if doing it enough for illicit something strong within him. His lust was alive, but he did not feel it reaching into all parts of him now.

All of these things were so terribly meaningless to him because they were so routine, and he had lived through them over and over again for thousands of years now. Thor found ways to make him laugh, but there were only so many original jokes that the god of thunder could come up with. Freyja was beautiful, but unnaturally so; it was as if she were a composite creature, and Loki knew she would never love him in return. Even thinking about the love that he could have had with her did not make him angry now. It was as if he had gotten his soul caught on a corner somewhere, and just forgot to go retrieve it when he noticed it was missing.

Loki's laboratory was as anything else that belonged to him: immaculate beyond compare. Every glass vial and beaker was in just the right spot, all ingredients were categorized perfectly, and everything was as clean as if it had never been used before. All the objects in this room were put into carefully arranged areas, and one had to question if he had little notes beneath them that instructed what to place there. If there had been any filth in the room, even it would be precisely placed.

He had been working all that day on a potion of no significance whatsoever, as remedy to his emptiness. Theorizing that if he kept himself occupied, he would rid himself of these feelings of loneliness. It was not turning out very well.

The recipe he had been "slaving over" was one for widespread insanity, something that Loki wanted to unleash upon the gentry of Asgard for a bit of excitement. It would be simple enough to put the tasteless and odorless concoction in their wine during a banquet, and all would find themselves in complete chaos for at least ten minutes, suffering from vivid hallucinations and feelings of deepest intoxication.

All his malice was released back at home. When Loki was in Vanaheim, he felt so... well behaved down to the bone. Honestly, he could almost forget his position as god of mischief while on its fertile soil. He felt so drawn to it, like it was the sea and he was the salmon. But now he could not go there ever again... or at least... at least while Sigyn was there.

Loki dropped his mortar and it shattered upon impact, its pieces sliding to multiple parts of the laboratory. His mind was somewhere he thought it would never be, and he thought the insides of his chest were dissolving. Electing to ignore it, Loki felt his hands trembling as he got back to work, magicking the mortar back into shape. The _idea_ kept running through his head, again and again and again... he buried this temporary insanity, and tried to get back to work.

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><p>Sigyn found that she utterly despised working because it was the ideal time for her thoughts to wander in lieu of any excitement. And it was not as if she was daydreaming about meaningless things that caused her no harm; when her thoughts wandered, they always inevitably gravitated towards the younger son of Odin. She thought that dismissing him from Vanaheim would have cured her of this, but it was as if her manifested feelings for him had decided that they liked the surface of her mind, and demanded her attention like an infant. It almost felt as if she had been "with" him, and she was stranded in the remnants of an ended relationship. The heartache was agonizing, and she could not alleviate it while working.<p>

Unfortunately, work for Sigyn now revolved around record-keeping and the rewriting of ancient and decaying documents. After the day she had tried her hardest to work at the docks, Njord had forbade her from doing so again due to the fact that multiple men working alongside her informed him that she had nearly died several times from swinging chains and large crates. Sigyn insisted that she had no idea what they were talking about (and she did not, for she had not been paying very good attention at the time), but Njord would hear no more of it.

Now she sat here in her father's study, rewriting words that she did not know nor pay attention to. Her quill's incessant scratching sounds were making incisions in the side of her skull, and she dropped the thing on the surface of the desk with little regard.

Loki was at the front of her mind, and her heart hammered in her chest so fervently she thought it might smash through her ribs. She wondered if there was a small chance in all the Nine Realms that he might be thinking of her for even a moment, and her breath fluttered into a gasp at the idea.

Then her reality came crashing down upon her, and she felt the feet of her imagination touch the ground. Loki would never be hers, she reminded herself, and it was best that he never was.

She thought to herself, 'Well, why the hell not?'

_For one, he's an Aesir, and he's a son of Odin. _

_He's much too old for you. _

_He's probably wed. Or at least has a mistress or two to keep him company. _

_He's much too beautiful._

_He will live on for eons after you die. _

She wished that Loki was back with her, but now... now he would never come back to her again. Not that he would ever come back to her in the first place, but Sigyn liked to delude herself into thinking that he would. This delusion only lasted a few seconds, and then she insisted within herself that she knew better.

Sigyn could hold in her emotions no longer, and cried. Tears rolled down her cheeks so freely she did not even bother wiping them away, and as they fell upon the parchment, the droplets turned black as the script was ruined.

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><p>Loki sat at dinner that night in the banquet hall, seated beside Fandral and across from Sif. They were looking most inappropriately dressed for dinner (along with Volstagg, Hogun, and Thor), and evidently they had just returned from a day of adventure. Surely they must be dreadfully bored of having the times of their lives every day, thought Loki.<p>

The dark-haired prince picked at the roast duck with a very clean fork, feeling very hungry yet unsure that he should eat. He was most displeased with himself for leaving his insanity concoction in his chambers this evening, as it was looking like this would have been the most suitable of times to have used it. It was so dull here, and he still felt so unlike himself. Perhaps Asgard had made itself more boring than usual in an attempt to pull him out of this rut with something outrageously mischievous.

The seat beside him was moved back and became occupied with a body adorned with lovely, skintight silks colored like the a violet sunset, and the most wonderful smell Loki could imagine filled his nose. It was a scent he had known for years and years, yet it never failed to kick his senses into order.

Freyja was beside him now, smiling at him with a cross between boundless joy and endless need. Loki felt extreme dominance when she gave him that smile, as he knew she reserved it only for him. Not even Óðr was given that smile.

"How are you tonight, my prince?"

"Wonderful," he lied. "I had a productive day, and I was just enjoying the conversation between Thor and his comrades."

Freyja reached for a pear, and Loki beat her to it without moving forward at all. His long fingers summoned the fruit forward, escaping her grasp and finding his instead. She looked impressed (as she should be, he thought), and he handed it to her without hesitation.

"You're so clever," said Freyja.

Loki smirked, not knowing how moving a piece of food required much thought on his part, but still entertained at the notion of dazzling her.

Freyja proceeded to talk to him about how her day had been, as if he was her husband and she needed to inform him about such matters. It was the closest that he would ever be to the position of her husband, and (still in his trance of apathy) he felt the smallest twinge of jealousy possible, like a tiny bug nibbling at his arm.

She was wearing Brísingamen this evening, the beautiful thing sparkling with an assortment of purest gold and the deepest rubies. Usually when Loki caught sight of the adornment, he wished to rip it from her neck and tear it to pieces in fury at how she had obtained it. Recently, he had been able to marvel at its exquisiteness for the first time without said rage. He admitted that something was terribly wrong with him, as the existence of Brísingamen typically caused as much violent mania as the sight of Óðr.

They spoke for a while longer, and Freyja had a habit of waiting impatiently for her turn to talk. Loki eased himself into just keeping his mouth shut and listening to her; perhaps it was better that way, as just about everything he told her was a lie. Finally, she seemed to have exhausted herself with talking and, under the table where no one could see, seized his hand.

"Would you take me to your room tonight?"

Loki felt himself almost overwhelmed with instantaneous lust, and he was tempted for a second to ravish her on the table while all watched. He cleared his throat, knowing better than to do something so stupid. "Of course."

Freyja stood up first, flitting off in the direction of his bedroom. As she ran off, Loki looked back at her with slight admiration at how beautiful she made herself even when she was running, like a butterfly taking flight.

Within about two or three minutes (to avoid looking suspicious), Loki himself left his chair and walked with a slower, more masculine pace to his chambers. He did not look back, but he was fairly positive that his exit had not caught anyone's attention. The only person that looked up at all was Fandral, and he thought nothing of it and instead returned to talking with Sif in an almost flirty manner.

When the two rendezvoused in Loki's bedroom, Freyja was already slipping her clothing off with so much zeal one might have thought that she had been yearning to shed it all evening. Loki took off his own clothes with care, as they were worn in layers and something he preferred to care for. While laying them down as nicely as he could on his messy desk, Freyja seized him around the waist and pulled him to the bed. Not wanting to be the least bit careful with anything, she flung the sheets around the two of them.

She sat upon Loki's hips, only to have him swiftly throw her onto her back, her auburn hair cascading across the surface of the mattress like bleeding ink. Loki ran his hand down her neck, traveling south until it was in between her legs. He began to stroke her rhythmically, obvious in his intent to tease her; it was working wonderfully, and the woman writhed as a euphoric insanity washed over her.

Loki positioned his body between her parted legs, and entered her roughly and without hesitation. She moaned with surprise at how gentle he was _not _being with her tonight, and dug her fingers into the sheets while his movement gained speed. His normally neat ebony hair was becoming more disheveled at every thrust until strands of it were brushing past his cheekbones, and he had so much repressed energy to use that he felt he could keep this up for hours.

But it was not destined to last for even too much longer. Loki's thoughts had began to wander to unexplored areas, and when it finally opened his eyes to Freyja, her auburn hair was fading into a bright blond and her skin was whitening. Her lips were becoming more delicate, her eyelashes were growing out straight, and her golden eyes were changing into a cool blue. Loki's eyes widened, and he was staring right into the face of Sigyn.

When Loki's pace began to slow significantly, Freyja opened her eyes in confusion, about to question what was happening to cause him to do this. Right at that moment, she caught saw a blanket of blond curls resting upon her shoulder, and she screamed.

Pushing a very confused Loki off of her, Freyja ran to his lavatory, panicking. "What did you do to me, Loki?"

"I did nothing," he replied, keeping his tone calm but indeed wondering the same.

By the time she had reached the mirror, Freyja was relieved to find that her appearance was back to normal. She grabbed her auburn locks and examined them, looking for any traces of the blond that was there not but half a minute ago. There was none to be found, but she knew for certain that she had not imagined it.

She returned to the bedroom, looking as if she were about to set herself aflame and burst into tears all at once. Loki was already pulling his slacks back on, positive that Freyja was about to leave and not about to be dressed (or undressed) like he had been walked out on.

"Why did you do that to me, Loki?" she asked, hurt.

"You're most mistaken. I did nothing at all."

"Stop! Just... for once... please, don't lie to me," she pleaded, earnest in her speech. When Loki looked at her, he almost caught a glimpse of the kind of pain she had in her when Óðr was about to leave her again.

"I honestly don't know then," he replied sharply.

"Were you thinking of someone else?"

"Of course not."

She apparently did not believe him. "Am I not enough for-"

"Obviously I am not enough for you!" he yelled back at her, so baffled at what had just happened and filled with frustration that he could not hold back his anger.

Freyja looked taken aback, and Loki did not blame her: he had never raised his voice to her before, and she was seeing a part of him that was never revealed to anyone. He felt anger. He felt irritation. Loki could have laughed with how much emotion was finally filling him up for the first time in weeks; it was liberating.

His emotions almost faltered when he took a better look at Freyja. Her golden eyes were filled up with tears, and she gathered her clothes and her necklace together without saying a word. The love he had felt for her made him want to take her in an embrace and keep her until she forgave him, but his self-respect kept him still.

Freyja looked at him for about a second, and there was an immediate and unspoken understanding. He did not say anything, and nor did she as she left the room and slammed the door.

Loki could have dropped to the ground at that moment from the pain of possibly (and in all probability) losing the woman he had loved as a child, and the feelings that were filling him as he thought back on seeing the image of Sigyn beneath him. He loved Freyja so intensely that he had been letting her use him for centuries, but other feelings were occupying space in his thoughts so that Freyja's complete presence was impossible.

Loki thought about Sigyn underneath him, taking all of him, while he had all of her in his arms. The thought of it ran through his bloodstream like alcohol, reaching his brain and sending him chills. It was strange, and Loki did not know what to think about this.

Not at all.

He felt for a second as if he might actually cry.

* * *

><p><strong>Thanks for reading, you guys! And again, so sorry for the long update. I was insanely sick :(<strong>


	7. Author's Note

Dear Readers and Subscribers,

I am not usually the type to whine, but I feel my story is not up to my expectations that I had in mind when I first ventured to write this. Perhaps I was rash in posting this as quickly as I did, but I now think that these chapters deserve revisions for the ones who take the time to read them. I plan to rewrite the chapters and put the whole story together before I post all of it, and until then this story is on a temporary hiatus. I hope I've not disappointed you guys; I'm really just trying to make this more enjoyable to the few that do read this.

~ Aurea Mediocritas


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